Eutrophication

• The San Francisco Airport (SFO) implemented a total ban on the sale of plastic water bottles in August 2019.
• “However, research unequivocally shows that when it comes to beverage packaging, the more sustainable answer is polyethylene terephthalate, better known as PET.
• “We are concerned about the detrimental environmental effects these total plastic bans will have on the environment.
• Understanding the benefits of PET packaging is key to making informed choices and comprehending the environmental trade-offs associated with alternative materials.

• Six of our nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed – and industrial agriculture are the main culprit.
• This notion of overstepping boundaries is clear in regard to the best-known limit of them all: that of climate change.

• Yet in the case of the planetary boundary for nitrogen, exceeding the threshold is different, as it is the industrialisation of agriculture that is largely, and more complexly, responsible for breaking the limit.
• But how can agriculture affect the nitrogen cycle?

The natural nitrogen cycle

• First, we need to understand the natural cycle of carbon and nitrogen – two of the main elements that form living matter.
• So, the boundaries of the nitrogen cycle have to remain local: any loss of nitrogen brings about a risk of soil depletion, which jeopardises continued plant growth.

• The amount of nitrogen that is lost in the atmosphere and in groundwater is therefore considerable, and this loss makes nitrogen the main limiting factor in plant growth.
• They do so through a symbiotic association with bacteria that have enzymes needed to convert molecular nitrogen into proteins.
• It is this symbiotic fixation that offsets the natural environmental loss of nitrogen and ensures that terrestrial ecosystems function perennially.

Farming and fertilisation

• Each time plants are harvested, the nitrogen contained in them is carried far away from the plot of soil where it came from.
• That is the purpose of fertilisation.
• There are many methods of fertilisation.
• Indeed, this method was the basis of traditional systems of polyculture and livestock farming.
• They quickly made traditional polyculture and livestock farming obsolete and paved the way to intensified and specialised agriculture, which was henceforth coupled with the heavy chemical industry.

Environmental nitrogen loss

• In this accelerated flow of nitrogen, what causes trouble is the environmental nitrogen loss that results from it.
• Indeed, the more nitrogenous fertilisers are used to increase crop yields, the less the added nitrogen is effective and the greater the losses through leaching and volatilisation.
• What we call the nitrogen surplus is the excess of nitrogen put into the soil in relation to the quantity actually taken away through harvesting.

Feeding the world without ruining it

• But can we reasonably scale down intensive farming without jeopardising the food security of a world that will have 10 billion mouths to feed by 2050?
• Yet we can only do so if three major structural changes are made to the entire agrifood system at the same time as intensive agriculture is toned down.
• On the contrary, this model of agriculture has now been clearly identified as a factor that disturbs the Earth’s system profoundly.
• AFP and The Conversation France have maintained their editorial independence at every stage of the project.

Gilles Billen ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

• Members of the Global EPS Sustainability Alliance (GESA) will attend this week's United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) INC-3 session on the development of an international legally binding treaty on plastic pollution.
• The members will attend as accredited observers, holding consultative roles in the negotiations taking place in Nairobi, Kenya.
• The GESA coalition represents the EPS industry in Africa, North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
• Member organizations the European Manufacturers of EPS (EUMEPS) , the EPS Industry Alliance (EPS-IA) , the EPR Waste Association of South Africa (eWASA) , and Expanded Polystyrene Australia (EPSA) are accredited observers of the UNEP Plastic Pollution Treaty, holding consultative roles in the negotiations on its development.

• “We are pleased to welcome new investors like Advantage and Keytrade supporting our efforts to accelerate commercialization of our phosphate efficiency technology.
• Additionally, the continued support from our existing investors really fortifies what we are doing to bring new sustainable fertilizers to the U.S. farmer,” says Jason Burke, Vice President of Finance at Phospholutions .
• Conventional phosphorus fertilizers exhibit low efficiency, with as little as 10% being utilized by the crop during the year of application.
• To learn more about Phospholutions and follow their journey, visit www.phospholutions.com or on LinkedIn.